Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Sometimes I wonder what color the sky is in the J carrier exec's world. It sure doesn't seem to be blue. Carries are giving large cash incentives to induce customers to port their numbers from rival carriers, as much as ¥70,000 per line paid out immediately in cash. Even on the low end of ¥30,000 cash back, that is enough to pay contract and cancellation fees with money left over.

Like people aren't going to take advantage of that. And why should they not? If J carriers are stupid enough to do it. There have been cases of people contracting repeatedly 5 TalkingSIMs and then canceling within days. While JCI claims that they are not in financial danger from this, they believe it is an unsound business practice and are in official opposition. The MIC has said that there is nothing to be done but wait for the J carriers to pull their heads out of their collectives α$$ε$.

「事業者の自主的な対応策を待つしかない」

Now, JCI has added a ¥10,500 cancellation fee to TalkingSIMs that are used for less than 1 year. Softbank has also added a cancellation fee to their prepaid SIMs (¥9,975).

4 comments:

Cancellation fee for pre-paid??Isnt 'cancellation' like an oxymoron for 'pre-paid'...

This is the whole reason, pre-paid exists. So that people can pay upfront, and then forget about stuff like contracts, cancellation etc.

How does the Softbank pre-paid cancellation fee work? e.g. If I take a pre-paid SIM today and stop using it after 2 months of charge and do not get it recharged, how and when will they come to me for my moolah.

Update: Softbank's new prepaid MNP charge effective yesterday was quietly rolled out. Now the cost to MNP out with less than one year has increased to ￥５２５０and to really kick you in the nuts the (prepaid?!) contract cancellation fee has increased to ￥２０，７９０！Gee! Thanks a lot!!